Red Bull Hardline – EXCLUSIVE PhotoFix & Rider Interviews

27 Sep 2017

Its been one hell of a weekend of racing from Hardline!
So much going down! From Freeriders, privateers to full on pro’s, they all had a go at this event. Only the select few brave men made it through though. As the insanity took out nearly 50% of the riders.

Our man on the ground Brett Tree Shelfer has been snapping it all up.
Plus audio bites by Ride.io owner- Emyr Davies
Enjoy!

Press Play Here and Listen to the audio while your scrolling through these glorious pictures by Brett Shelfer

Craig Evans said he enjoyed his race run which is a rare thing for him. He’s just riding his bike and enjoying it.Craig stoked to ride big jumps. “stoked to sesh with the boys” as he says.This drop was a crowd favorite as well as a rider favorite. It was a nice break from the insane technical bits. Still you had to be brave to take the plungeBrayton wanted this win. He was on form all week, and showed a genuine enthusiasm for how hard this track was.Brayton ran his world champs bike. With a harder setup suspension wise.Brayton leading Craig out in practice.Just a big Hope sticker on Braytons bike. I wonder how many more compression clicks of those Ohlins forks were used this weekend?

Classic Gas to Flat style. Flat out in, Brayton’s tweak signature pencil, to flat out out again.This event is a hard one to manage. I mean no one wants to race something so risky mid World Cup season. But having it so late brings with it its own risks – weather. Fayolle – this event suited his style well. The young french man loves to take risks. He was my bet for the win. Fayolle said that he cant jump straight, he finds it more stable sideways in the air… Not that were complaining.Another young gun Brage Vestavik made his way over. The kid had bags of style. He didn’t quite make the cut for finals, but he survived the weekend. Which is more important!The dark man! Gazzy B was one of the original builders of the course with Dan back at the beginning. Gaz caught man flu in the week and decided not to race. Shame as he loves this stuff!Kaos Seagrave, What can we say. The new generation are coming through. Sideways everywhere, suicides and even a rumour of a backflip in his race run! Kaos was happy that he made it through qualifying, He was stoked to finish 7th. A lot of time and effort by the dig crew were spent trying to keep the bits leading up to the jumps hard packed. Even quick cement was used! Luckily there were only 20 riders or the track would have been a different story.Bernard Kerr. A man that won here last year, he was desperate to take his title back. Even though he had just come back from injury the confidence was up there.Bernard ran his world champs bike too. With Reynolds signature edition wheels.Pretty trick eh?Steeze! He was charging in his race run. But some big mistakes cost him dearly. 2nd place.Dirty Ferns – the name of the big jumps before this photo – Brett Shelfer getting some relevant creative content.Dan Atherton. Now a full time builder. It was good to see him pick up a DH bike and race his own creation.

It was even better when he managed 3rd place. But like he said the result didn’t matter. He was stoked that the weather played ball. 20 more minutes after finishing, heavy rain came in. If it would have been earlier it would have meant a cancellation.Dan’s Team mate Muddy must have had his fair share of the mud here in wales! Al Bond. Full time worker, barely rides his DH bike anymore. He’s in the middle of building a house and is a full time bike coach. He rode at Dyfi on the Tuesday before the event. The last time before that was Llangollen BDS a good month ago! Al is always into this race. Punctures have plagued him in the past. He was stoked to qualify, and even more stoked just to finish in one piece so that he could get back to work on Monday! Lozzza! This was Laurie Greenland’s first year at Hardline. And he loved it! Lozz was disappointed with his qualifying result. But Hardline is a beast that needs a different approach to race. Next time…Taylor Vernon made it through alive this year! He loves Hardline, but the same can’t be said for his mum! It was good to see a mixed bag of riders at Hardline this year. Yoan Barelli is an Enduro racer but he got the invite three weeks ago and jumped on a fresh DH rig and cracked on.Full stock build on the Commencal. He didn’t end up racing due to not wanting to injure himself.Good to see riders doing their own mechanic work.And where would we be with out the Media Squids! They even had their own Landy to carry them around this event. A huge thank you to Brett Shelfer for his amazing work from us at Ride.io